In human movement patterns the body moves as a kinetic chain. Take running for example. At first glance it may seem simple, but when broken down it is a complex movement involving the activation of many muscle groups across the entire body. The body likes to act this way to enhance efficiency, which is why using multi-joint compound exercises in lifting are deemed functional, as they appreciate that if the body moves as a system, it should be trained as a system (not by individual muscle groups like typical bodybuilding programs).
Now, when we are injured the kinetic chain has been interrupted, and the ability to perform functional movements has been affected accordingly. Here, you can either cease training completely, let all your trained bio-motor abilities regress until your injury recovers or attempt to train around the injury to maintain your athletic condition. What’s most important for those who choose the latter is that your traditional training means will have to be modified.
If possible individuals should try to maintain their cardiovascular fitness through any training modality they can find, as some training stimulus is better than none at all. Similarly, one should try and maintain musculoskeletal ‘fitness’ via training around the injury. For lower body injuries, train the upper body. For upper body injuries train the core and lower body. Find things that don’t irritate the injury and use them. Even go against your traditional exercise beliefs. I am a firm believer that exercise machines should not be utilized by healthy populations, but I will praise their usefulness in a rehabilitory context. Machines isolate the prime mover, without calling upon assistance from the synergistic muscles. This is useless for a healthy athlete, but it may serve beneficial for an injured athlete. The athlete can now train around his injury, as exercise machines typically don’t treat the body as a kinetic chain. Take a shoulder injury for example. Rather than completely ignoring the upper body, triceps extensions could be used in attempt to maintain triceps strength. For an uninjured athlete, the close-grip bench press would be more suitable, but due to the strain on the shoulder it would most likely cause the injury to develop further. Adjustments like these should be considered, because the worst feeling is coming back from an injury in poor shape. Trash for an athlete, may be treasure for the injured.
The goal for rehab should be:
1) Prioritizing healing to the injured site through means recommended by a physiotherapist/sports doctor
2) Maintain (not enhancing) all areas of fitness via any means possible, provided these do not stress the injured area at all
Here is a video of Jason performing the Back Squat 2-days out from a shoulder dislocation. External rotation was painful, so he decided to use one arm (after lots of warmup sets so become accustomed to the movement).
Unfortunately, Jason isn't the only one sidelined at the moment. Oscar is on his way to a shoulder reconstruction, but is still training hard every day. Here is Round 4 of one of his conditioning circuits:
If you were driving on a 3-lane highway and there was a car broken down in one lane, would you stop? No, you would drive around it and it would take a little bit longer. Apply this mentality to training and when there is an injury in your way, train around it!
